Rangers rout NHL's top team, Canadiens, 5
The Rangers have lacked offensive balance all season, but Sunday night, all four lines scored and the Blueshirts routed the NHL's top team, the Montreal Canadiens, 5-0, at the Garden.
Martin St. Louis had a goal and an assist. Dominic Moore, Derek Stepan, Carl Hagelin and Rick Nash also scored, and fourth-liners Tanner Glass and Jesper Fast recorded their first points of the season in New York's second consecutive shutout victory.
Backup goalie Cam Talbot had backstopped Wednesday's 2-0 blanking of the Philadelphia Flyers, and Henrik Lundqvist made 21 saves on Sunday to record his fourth shutout of the season in 16 starts. That improved Lundqvist's franchise shutout record to 54 in his career.
The Blueshirts (9-7-4) had Friday night's scheduled game in Buffalo postponed due to snow, rescheduled to Feb. 20. Clearly, they couldn't wait to get back on the ice, and it showed in a dominant performance over a tired Canadiens team playing the second game of a back-to-back.
Facing backup goalie Dustin Tokarski (29 saves) instead of Carey Price may have helped. Regardless, the Habs (16-6-1, NHL-best 33 points) had entered with an 8-1 record in their last nine games.
Lundqvist got the shutout, but this was one of those shutouts earned by the skaters in front, not the goaltender.
St. Louis was dominant, his back-handed cross-ice assist on Stepan drawing the comment 'Great (bleeping) pass,' from the young Rangers center, just as impressed as the crowd watching from the seats.
Ex-Ranger Brandon Prust provided some intrigue 3:40 into the third period, thumping Lundqvist to the open-ice and drawing defenseman Kevin Klein to drop the gloves with Prust for the second time this season. But otherwise, the Canadiens couldn't mount a fight.
St. Louis, meanwhile, is just two points away from his 1,000th career NHL point, meaning he could reach that milestone in, of all places, Tampa Bay, where he won the 2004 Stanley Cup, played most of his career, and the Rangers next play on Wednesday night.
Pre-game, Alain Vigneault said one of his most vivid memories of last season's Eastern Conference Final against the Canadiens is how well his Rangers played in their decisive, 1-0 Game 6 victory at the Garden to clinch a berth in the Cup Final.
'It was probably our best game of the playoffs so far (to that point),' Vigneault said Sunday afternoon at the Garden, before hosting the Habs. 'We needed that type of performance from our group, and we got it.'
They got it most significantly, though, from their fourth line. Moore scored the game's only goal off a forecheck by linemates Derek Dorsett and Brian Boyle. That line terrorized the Canadiens.
Entering Sunday night's game, the Rangers clearly this season had been lacking that same depth scoring, so it was beyond refreshing to see Moore, Fast and Glass set the tone early and open scoring.
A 1-0 lead on Moore's goal at intermission ballooned to 3-0 after two thanks to goals by Stepan and St. Louis, before Hagelin and Nash added insurance in the third period.
Rookies Kevin Hayes and Anthony Duclair, who also need to start producing more to justify their continued presence in the lineup, connected on a beautiful set up of Hagelin's goal, each picking up assists.
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